You have so many relationships in this life : Day Twenty-five

Over the last week, I have been in a pretty dark place.  I've sunk pretty deeply into a depression that I haven't seen for at least the last couple of years.  I have been functioning at the most basic of levels, in order to keep myself and my child sustained.  I haven't let on to him how much internally I have been dealing with, but on nights when he goes to bed, it's all I can do just to go through the simple tasks before crashing myself.  I have no energy.  I feel myself isolating, and there's honestly not much I can do about it.  In these times, I used to be able to write, but now, I feel a total loss of words.  I am trying to get myself back.  So I thought this would be a good place to start.

Day 25 – A first

As today is Taylor Hanson's 28th birthday, I figured what is a better way to celebrate than to write something about him?  Or my experience with him.  My first Hanson concert.

The tickets went on sale when I was in Florida for a band trip, just after my freshman year of high school, so my mother, the great person that she is, waited patiently online at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning.  She landed four tickets (for her, myself, my younger sister, and my best friend and fellow Hanson lover, Nichole.) in the 56th row at the Red Rocks Amphitheater outside of Denver, Colorado. 

As a teenage girl, very little compares to being in close proximity to a celebrity you are "in love" with.  Nichole and I had spent all night the night before the concert making posters.  We talked endlessly about how we were going to meet, them, get them to fall in love with us.  This was 13 years ago, and though I will never forget it, there are only small details left in the back of my head.

It was 104 degrees in Denver that day.  When we got to the Amphitheater, I burned my elbow leaning on the rock, to this day there is still a soft scar there.  The venue itself is breathtaking.  Everything surrounding you is red rock.  Everything.  Around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, we got to the venue, and witnessed the boys unloading from their tour bus, running around like the young boys they were.  We were ecstatic.  Even though we shared that moment with hundreds of other people, it still feels like it was only us.

There was the bathroom, that we couldn't figure out how to work the sink to wash our hands.  There was the $3 bottles of water, and the hundreds and hundreds of stairs.  There was the "mom" section at the top, and the sea of little girls down below.  There was the sound, and the raw emotion of three boys playing the songs they had written.

Only two of our photos turned out.  The first is of us standing in the line of cars waiting to get in to park, where we are holding our signs.  The other is from the show where the only thing you can see are the stage lights, unless you squint and you're able to see the outlines of the boys in their respective places.

Getting back to the hotel that night, Nichole and I slept on cots while my mother and sister took the bed.  My throat burned from all of the screaming and singing.  I lost my voice the next day.  It was worth it.

Nichole kept her hair in tiny braids for the next two weeks.

I have now seen these boys live over ten times.  I have driven, and flown, and laughed, and cried.  I have shook Taylor's hand four times.  Had my photo taken, willingly, with both Taylor and Isaac.  This band has led me to more friends, and more memories, and more happiness than I could have ever hoped for from a band of three brothers.  I have friends scattered across the country, from east to west, north to south.  I have friends overseas.  People I never would have met otherwise.

I feel sorry for people who have never loved a band as much as I have loved this one.  They will just NEVER understand.

Wrap your arms around her body : Day Seventeen

Day 17 – Your favorite memory

Like almost anyone, narrowing down a memory out of my lifetime of memories to call it my "favorite" would be nearly impossible. If I had one favorite memory, why would I bother to write about anything else? Why would I go through my days trying to live up to some impossible moment that I know will never be topped? I have favorite memories from specific events or times in my life.

I know a lot of you assumed my favorite memory would be from the day Aiden was born. Though I love my son, cherish every minute we get to spend together, and would NEVER, NEVER take any of it back, the day he was born was a very intensely lonely and eye opening day for me, not a favorite. I feel like a terrible mother for saying that, too. It was sink or swim on that day, and though I chose to keep swimming, for a long time I felt as though I was drowning.

So instead of something dark and tragic, I have decided this time to focus on an intensely happy, life altering even in my life. Silly to most of you, understood by a few, it was the first time I met and spoke with Taylor Hanson. The moment itself is so small and insignificant that it's not the entire point.

My mother and I had driven to Denver for a Hanson concert (I believe this was number 8), and we met up with my longtime internet friend, fellow Hanson fan, Clare. We had met in person once before, four or so years previous, another concert (that one being number 3.)

Hanson had started doing something new with their tours; in addition to just the concert, on the afternoon before the show they had started taking one mile walks for charity, with their fans. They called this Taking the Walk. For every mile walked (each person counting separately) the band would donate a dollar to a charity of the walker's choosing. Also, the walkers would be able to interact with members from the band.

Any fan of any band would have been thrilled to jump at the chance to meet the band members in such an informal setting. Clare and I, of course, decided that we had to participate.

Unknown to us, Hanson had changed the location of The Walk only an hour or so before it was set to start, and unfortunately we were all the way on the opposite end of Denver around the time they were to start. My mother, driving like a bat out of hell to get her babies to where they wanted to be most, raced across the city. She let us off in the middle of the street, and went to find a place to park, and then catch up with us by walking in the opposite direction.

Clare and I took off. At this point in time, I was around 40 pounds heavier, and also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. We ran, me trying to hold my pants up, my shoe flying. We hurdled a wall. My lungs gave up after about a quarter of a mile, and I started wheezing. I urged Clare on. She hung back from the pack of people we saw gathered and starting on the walk.

Finally, we made it to the group, and it was a bit larger than we had anticipated. Finding Isaac, Taylor and Zac seemed impossible. Right about the time my mother caught up with us, we realized that Zac was walking with a couple of girls directly behind us.

About half way through, we stopped to listen to Taylor ramble on through a bullhorn about how awesome he is, and we, of course, nodded in approval. This gave my lungs and my leg ample time to recoup and by the time we took off again, Clare pulling on my arm, we ended up in stride with beautiful Taylor.

I forgot to mention, these walks were urged to be done barefoot. The band and most of the fan were not wearing their shoes, rather carrying them. It was October. They were walking on pine cones. No thank you.

As Clare chatted with Taylor, she turned to him and said, "This is my friend, Sadie!" like they were old friends, "She's from Nebraska." He turned around to shake my hand, eyeballing the IOWA hoodie I was wearing. "I'm Taylor." He said as I gripped his enormous hand.

They talked, and we talked, and walked, and my mother caught most of it on videotape, save the part where she was walking backwards and ran into a street sign.

The best part. The absolute best part. We're walking along a sidewalk that is surrounded by evergreen trees which have started to lose their needles. The people walking barefoot are trying not to get stabbed by them. All of a sudden, Taylor stops, blocks Clare with his body, and says, "Watch out, there's a bee!" at which Clare jumps back and exclaims, "I'm allergic!" and Taylor kills the bee, on the layer of pine needles, with his bare foot. Best. Moment. Ever.

Things wrapped up pretty quickly after that. We ended up in front of someone's house, they sang a couple of songs acapela, and Clare managed to get a photo with Taylor where they're actually looking at the same camera.

Because of all the physical exertion, I spent the majority of the evening with a terrible headache, and I could barely walk the next morning. The concert was wonderful, like most Hanson concerts are.

Oh, and my mother managed to capture the moment with the bee on camera, so I'll be able to remember it in perfect detail forever.

Clare's life was saved, by Taylor Hanson's bare feet. <3